Welcome to this week's topic. We're going to talk about intentional change theory and how we can use that to drive behavior change. Let's start with the idea of that behavior change is hard. Some people are going to make the argument that no Ron it's easy, if you do the right things, it's easy. I'm not here to say that. I think we can make it easier, but I believe that behavior change is still, even when we do the right things and we have the right tools in our toolbox, behavior change is not easy, all right? I don't want that to intimidate you or scare you away, but once you prepare your mind for the journey is going to be a little bit difficult, I think we're in a better position to make this happen. Even with that being said, there are harder ways and easier ways to drive behavior change. And I'm going to give you a tool that I found that works well for me. And it's also something I teach not only my students, but also my clients and it's called intentional change theory. And so the idea is we can use this again, as a wonderful tool in our toolbox to drive behavior change, all right? So, Richard Boyatzis came up with this intentional change theory as he was doing some work on not only individual, but also organizational change. He came up with this method, this model and he has done plenty of research on this to back it up, but he comes up with five common sense steps. So that's where I think really the strength in this theory lies. All right, so let's take a look at those five stages of intentional change theory. Number one, we'll talk more about ideal self in a second here, but just let's go through these five and then we'll dig into a little bit deeper. Imagining your ideal self and creating a personal vision, making it something that is out there on the horizon, all right? That's your vision. In my ideal world, what would it look like in five years, what would my life look like? What would I be doing and how would I be showing up in the world if all of it went well, all right? A vision should be aspirational, it should be something where my gosh, I love my life, that is what a vision is, all right? Dream big, all right? We don't want to go too crazy with that, but I want you to stretch yourself when you think about the vision. We'll talk much more about vision later in this course. But the idea is imagining your ideal self in that ideal vision, that ideal future is my ideal self. It's not necessarily who I am right now, but if I work toward that, I can become that version of my ideal self. That's where we start with intentional change theory. Now that I have a good idea what that ideal self looks like, now we compare to where I am right now, what's the reality? What's my real self? All right, so again, in coaching a lot of times, we'll call this a gap analysis, real self here, ideal self here, right? We got point A, point B. We need to get from point A to point B. I need to get from my real self to my ideal self. And now the gap analysis is, how do I interpret that gap? How do I get there? Developing a learning agenda and plan. If you remember back to some of our previous lectures, we have to invest, right? Action, engagement are important, behavior change does not happen if we don't do something with it. So, you need to develop some kind of a learning agenda. How am I going to get better at being my ideal self? How do I close that gap? And that's where you're learning agenda and plan is going to come into place. Number four, practice the desired changes. I always love it when I watch people do something once and they're so upset they weren't amazing at it. As a baseball player, I have hit probably over 100,000 baseballs in my career and I still never had it mastered. We practice over and over again. Why is it in the world of leadership and business and management, and all the things that we want to perform well at? We expect to be really good at it, doing it once twice, or even ten times. Do it 1,000 times and see how good you get, all right? You need to settle into this idea, we need to practice if we truly want to be an elite performer. So, don't skip over that, all right? And don't get frustrated with yourself if you've done it ten times and you're not an expert yet, that's not the way things work, all right? You want to be a good speaker? Do it 1,000 times, all right? Don't do it once or twice, do it a lot. So, practice. Lastly, relationships that help us learn, pay attention to people around you. A lot of times we have people in our relationships, in our network that can help us and tapping into those is so important. I wish I would have tapped into the people around me and just go have coffee with them and say, hey, can we talk about something? Because more than likely they're more than happy to help and why reinvent the wheel? All right, use those people around you. Let them share their wisdom with you. So, here's the deal, you might be able to figure it out on your own, but figuring out what somebody else is going to go much quicker, all right? And if you want, I don't like hacks, but if you want to call that a hack, go ahead and call it a hack and use that, all right? Tap into that relationship. All right, so according to self discrepancy theory again, that actual or real self is beliefs. All right, these are beliefs and then there's one that we're going to bring into the equation now called the ought self. Who ought I be, all right? And this ought a lot of times is being driven by what? A lot of times driven by society, all right? We live a life where we're thinking that we ought to be this person or we ought to be doing this and it's really not truly who we are. It's not authentic to us. The number one regret of the dying is that I wish I would have lived a life true to myself. The ought self can get us in trouble, all right? Don't end up being that person at the end of your life that has the regret that I wish I would have lived a life true to myself. Live that ideal life, don't live that ought life, okay? This is an easy trap to fall into, all right? And it's not just society, it could be significant others, it could be parents. I see a lot of my students that are impacted by trying to live up to what their parents think they should be doing. That's wonderful and love your parents, that's all a good thing. But again, live a life that's true to you all right? And so, beware of that ought self. The actual self, where are you right now? What is your reality? We look at the ideal self and you can see it tie into what we've already been doing, right? We'll talk about ethos as we move forward, but we've already talked about strengths. Core values are another thing that's coming later in this program or in this course. And so all of this is going to tie together and say, okay, what is that ideal self look like? I want you to start thinking about that right now, let's take a look at what Richard Boyatzis came up with. This is a great little chart to say, okay, what does that ideal self look like? Notice some of the things that go into this, right? I don't want to read this this too much, but let your your waves kind of wander around and see some of the key elements that go into the ideal self. Self efficacy, this idea, it's a little bit different than self confidence, but one of those things that I'm really good at is this feasible, optimism, that's going to be part of it as well. What is my passion? Again, you can see a tie in to some other work we've done already. Where am I at in my life? My idea of my ideal self right now at my advanced age is different than when I was 23, all right? That's okay, that's part of the equation. What are your values? What is your philosophy of life? Those are going to be part of how you come up with your ideal self? Do you have a calling or purpose? If we want to get to our ideal self, we need to dig into all of this stuff that you see on this slide to say, okay, what's at the heart of this? Let's wrap this up again, great tool. Alright, intentional change theory. When I stumbled across this, I said, wow, this is a great tool. Again, I use it personally, I use it when I'm coaching clients and also with my students and I'm sharing it now with you. Of course, it's not me, I'm not the brilliant person that came up with it and we're going to put this tool into our tool box and use it with great effect. That's what I hope for you. You got plenty of things to work on from this lesson to dig into what does that ideal self look like? Beware of the ought self, I'll see in the next video.
